Monday, December 27, 2010

It's the holiday season. Two days after Christmas, I am sitting in my mother's living room typing on a blog I created about a year ago. So far it has been an interesting journey.

A few days before my Christmas break started, I had the idea to capture the stories of my parents in writing. Over the years, my parents have shared their stories, their lives with us, but I have a hard time remembering them all. I always had good intentions of getting the stories of my grandparents, but failed in that endeavor. So, when Christmas break was approaching and I had the idea to write the stories of my parents, I knew I needed to actually do it and not just think it was a good idea. This holiday season I actually sat with my dad, my mom, and my step-dad and asked them to tell me their stories.

It has been an interesting journey. Even though I haven't had time to delve deeply into the stories yet, I am scratching the surface and especially with my mother, I am finding many parallels in our lives.

We think we know our parents yet we can find ourselves completely shocked by the things our parents have experienced and felt. But in unearthing the truth, we find that we can connect with them in new and more meaningful ways. I think parents are worried about telling us the truth. Worried that their truths might encourage us to follow in their paths. I also think what they don't realize is that their reality helps us connect with them and realize that we are not crazy, we are not complete dumbasses, and that our parents have made the same damn mistakes as us and that's why they seem like such overbearing buttheads. They've made the mistakes. They don't want us to know they have made the same mistakes. They want to prevent US from making those mistakes.

I am looking forward to getting deeper and deeper into the stories of my parents. The small amount of information I have gathered has shed a new light on my own life experience. It is helping me to better understand and appreciate my parents and what they have been through.